Lois Lerner Shamefully Retires

Facing a possible firing, Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency’s tea party scandal, is retiring, the agency confirmed Monday. Taxpayers will remember her fondly as someone who, when asked for her help in uncovering potential IRS malfeasance against the president’s political enemies, clammed up and refused to cooperate for fear of incriminating herself.

Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012.

Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.She was placed on "administrative leave" four months ago to the day, with Chuck Grassley saying at the time he’d heard that the interim director of the IRS had asked for Lerner’s resignation — and that she refused.

Firing her was always an unlikely option, just because it’s hard to fire a federal employee under any circumstances, but I always assumed they placed her on leave initially with an eye to quietly reinstating her if/when the public storm over tea-party targeting finally blew over. (That’s what happened to the Benghazi Four. after all.)

Chances of that evaporated last week, though, when the ACLJ released previously unknown e-mails from Lerner during her IRS days, one of which mentioned the tea-party matter being “very dangerous” for fear that it could be used to extend the “Citizens United” ruling to tax-exempt orgs. Then came the release of IRS documents scrutinizing groups for “anti-Obama rhetoric,” and that was probably it.

Better for the agency to ease her out with some sort of retirement deal than keep her on and be dogged forever by questions about its impartiality. Politico, in fact, wondered last month if August would bring Lerner’s departure. Nope, evidently it took a few more black eyes for the IRS to make it happen.

Thankfully, she’ll no longer be in a position to affect policy as a government employee. Unfortunately, she’ll likely soon be back in a position to affect policy as a government lobbyist, making several times the salary she made before. Is this a great country, or what?

Laugh Lines: Father O'Malley rose from his bed. It was a fine spring day in his new Texas mission parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of the beautiful day outside. He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn. He promptly called the local police station.

A voice answered, "Good morning. This is Sergeant Jones. How might I help you?" Father O'Malley said, "And the best of the day te yerself. This is Fadder O'Malley at St Brigid's. Dere's a jackass lyin dead on me front lawn. Would ye be so kind as to send a couple o' yer lads to take care of da matter?"

Sergeant Jones, considering himself to be quite a wit, replied with a smirk, "Well now father, it was always my impression that you people took care of last rites!"

There was dead silence on the line for a long moment. Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye, tis certainly true, but we are also obliged to notify the next of kin."

A man died in a horrible fire. The mortician thought it was George, but the body was so badly burned that somebody would need to make a positive identification. That task fell to George's two friends, Joe and Al.

After taking a look, Joe said, "He's burnt pretty bad, all right. Roll him over." Joe looked at the dead man's ass and said, "Nope, that ain't George." Thinking the incident strange, the mortician straightened up the body and said nothing.

He brought in Al and showed him the body. Al said, "Wow, he's burnt to a crisp. Roll him over." Al said, "Nope, that ain't George." The mortician asked, "How can you tell?" All answered, "George had two assholes." The mortician, "What? How could he have two assholes?"

Al said, "Everybody knew George had two assholes. Whenever the three of us would go into town, you'd hear people say, "Here comes George with those two assholes!"

That's it for now. More soon !

Stay Tuned !

WAR!.....FORE!

Obama played golf on Saturday following his major announcement that he had decided the United States should take military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons on civilians during that country’s civil war.

Obama and Vice President Biden left for the course within minutes of his Rose Garden speech in which he asked Congress to first approve such action.

They played at nearby Fort Belvoir with regular Obama golfing partner Marvin Nicholson, the White House trip director, and with Nicholson’s brother, Walter Nicholson, rounding out the foursome.

Obama is an avid golfer and his outings have resulted in critics frequently saying throughout his presidency that the president is enjoying himself while too many Americans are out of work or suffering through another crisis.

Laugh Lines: A man is in bed with his wife when there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door. He rolls over and looks at his clock and it's half past three in the morning. He thinks, "I'm not getting out of bed at this time" and rolls over. Then, a louder knock follows. His wife says, "Aren't you going to answer that?"

So he drags himself out of bed, and goes downstairs. He opens the door and there is man standing at the door. It didn't take the homeowner long to realize the man was drunk. The stranger says, "Hi there. Can you give me a push?" The man responds, "No, get lost, it's half past three. I was in bed."

He goes back up to bed and tells his wife what happened and she says, "David, that wasn't very nice of you. Remember that night we broke down in the pouring rain on the way to pick the kids up from the baby-sitter and you had to knock on that man's house to get us started again? What would have happened if he'd told us to get lost?"

David says, "But the guy was drunk." His wife answers,  "It doesn't matter. He needs our help and it would be the Christian thing to help him." So the husband out of bed again, gets dressed, and goes downstairs.

He opens the door, and not being able to see the stranger anywhere he shouts, "Hey, do you still want a push?" He hears a voice cry out "Yeah please." So, still being unable to see the stranger he shouts, "Where are you?" The stranger replies, "I'm over here, on the porch swing."

A drunk in a bar throws up all over his own shirt, which was brand new before he came in. He says, "Damn, I threw up on my shirt again. If the wife finds out, she’s gonna kill me." The bartender says, "Don't worry. Put a twenty dollar bill in your pocket and tell her someone threw up on you on you and gave you some cash to cover the cleaning bill."

So the drunk goes home and tells his wife about the guy who threw up on him. She reaches into his pocket and finds two twenties. She asks, "Why are there two twenties?" The drunk replies, "Oh, yeah, he crapped in my pants, too."

I've removed swimming with dolphins from my bucket list, mainly because I can't swim and drowning with dolphins doesn't have quite the same appeal.

That's it for now my little artichoke hearts. More Soon.

Stay Tuned!